The Massacre.

Evening Post, Volume LXVI, Issue 16, 18 July 1903, Page 9

The Massacre.

It was a hot day in June some fifteen years ago. I was working in a certain town on the Volga, at the wharf, from the early morning, pitching a ft ft. Dinner time was neaxing when suddenly somewhere in the village behind me a dull, angry noise resounded, as if hungry bulls were roaring. I too, was hungry, and wanted to finish my work as soon as possible, and tHereforo I paid at first no attention to the distant sound, which grew louder and louder every moment, even as smoke grows in the beginning of a. fire. A heavy cloud of dust hung in the hot air over the village. I looked towards the village, and it seemed to me that 1 could hear many-voiced sounds filling the air, rising from the- ground together with the dust. The dust became even thicker and thicker, the sounds louder and more /aried, the atmosphere trembled, and together with it my heart beat quickly, foreboding evil. Leaving my work I walked up the sandy bank, and saw people jumping out from the gates ot the lioubes, running along the streets, into the depth of the village ; dogs and children were running after them ; frightened pigeons soared over their heads, and hens were swarm-* ing about at their feet. Carried away by the general confusion I also started to run. "They are fighting on Elizavetinskayal" shouted some one. A drayman on horseback was hurrying along the unpaved street towards the running crowd, furiously lashing his horse with the reins. He kept shouting at the top of his voice : — •'They are beatiug our people!'' I turned into the narrow side-street and stopped. A mass of people filled the side-street with their bodies so tightly wedged that it looked like a sack, tilled with gram. In Iront of us, far away, people roared and yelled, window panes were rattling, heavy blows smote the air ; something was cracking and falling ; one sound drowned another, even as the autumn clouds cover one another, and the noise hung in the air like a storm cloud. "They're killing the Jews!" said a clean-looking littlo old man, with a ring of satisfaction in, his voice. He firmly rubbed his small, thin hands, and added : "It serves them right !" I advanced towards the noise, obeying its irritating power of at'tractiou. 1 was not the only one thus attracted ; {he terrible noise attracted everybody, absorbed everybody like a swamp. The faces of the people bespoke violent, dull rage ; their eyes flashed greedily; the entire crowd moved forward in a closo heavy mass, ready to break the walls and fences which pressed them together ; each was ready to knock down the man in front of him, to walk over his body, to trample it. I rushed into the yard of one of the houses on the street side, jumped across the fence into another yaid, then again and again ; and I found myself once more in the midst of a big crowd. It filled the yard of a large stone house — tie crowd seined to seethe in the narrow yard, as if the ground under their feet was quaking. As if possessed by evil spirits, they roared, their heads lifted upwards, their faces red, their teeth flashing in their open mouths. They flourished their hands ; they kept jostling one another ; thoy climbed to the roofs of the neighbouring houses ; they fell, and climbed again. And notwithstanding the variety of the movements of each person, there was something common in all ; each person became a member of one huge body, animated by one and tb,e same mighty power. High above this raging crowd on the roof of the house by the chimney, stood a thin, tall Jew. He tore bricks from the chimney with his fingers,, and hurling them down, kept crying in a shrill voice which sounded like the screaming of a seagull. His long grey beard quivered on his breast, and his white trousers were covered with red stains. The crowd below shouted to him madly: — "Shoot him!" "'Bring the gun!"' "Hit him with stones !" Through the windows of the house dark figures were seen walking hither and thither, breaking the window frames and throwing things into the yard. The window pines rattled and creaked. Now a broad-faced, shaggy fellow brought a looking-glass over to the window, thrust it out and shouted : '"Eh, look put there!" and tha mirror reflecting the rays of the sun, fell to the ground. The fellow thrust out his head. His broad face bore an expression of grief and seriousness, but not of wrath. At the other window appeared a black-bearded' peasant with a pillow in his hands. He tore it open, and a white cloud of feathers filled the air. "It's snowing ; see that your noses don't freeze, fellows !" shouted the peasant, looking at the white feathers falling upon the heads of the crowd. And in the yard they roared : "Come here ! I've found the little Jews in a barrel !" "Hit them!" "Hit their heads against tha wall!" "Eh, you old Jew! Come down; we've found your grandchildren." "Get off the roof, or we'll kill your family!" The shrill cry of a child smote the air ; it was a terrible sound ; it flashed like lightning amidst the roaring of the mob. And the roaring of the mob calmed down a little. "Don't touch them!" shouted someone. "Don't touch the children !" "Hit the grown-up Jews!" The cry of the child was heard again ; shrill and loud, it pierced the heart and drowned all other sounds. "Oh, devil!" some one shouted wildy, his voice rising above the noiso of the crowd. "Did you hit him on the head?"

'"I shuck his legs !" "Thai's clever, old devil 1" "Anup! Let u^ knock down that Jew!" Two tall porters, jostling the crowd apart, walked over to the by-works near the house and climbed to the roof. Meanwhile the serious-looking, red-faced fellow appeared in one of the windows. He was trying to push through the window a cupboard or a box, and he shouted down : "Hey ! here come the dishes !" The box was too large to pass through the window, so the fellow pulled it back towards himself, disappeared for a minute, then again appeared at the window and howled like a wolf : "Look qul there! A heap of plates was thrown from the window, ther a samavcr flashed in the air. The people below ran away on all sides, covering their heads with their hands, and giggling at the top of their voices. A stout red-headed fellow seized the samovar from tho ground, lifted it high over his head, then again flung it to the ground and began to trample it under his feet. A superhuman sob suddenly broke foith on the roof. All lifted their heads upwards. Some large object appeared at the edge of the Toof , quivering in the air for a few seconds, then it screamed, howled and sank down. A soft, disgusting dash resounded- I rushed away from the yard, and as I ran I was followed by a- wild roar of triumph. "A-a-ah ! A-ha ! We knocked him down at last!" On the street people were breaking chairs, tables, trunks, tearing clothing amidst shrieks of laughter. The air was filled with, feathers. Pillows, baskets, furniture, rags — ail was thrown from, the windows of the two houses to the feet of the mob, and" the mob, maddened with the desire to destroy, seized all these things, tore and smashed them to pieces. Two dishevelled women, red-faced and perspiring, firmly grasped a certain box and pulled it each to herself. They shouted, feathers and down were flying about their heads ; their mouths were open, but their voices were drowned by the howling and roaring of the crowd, and by the cries of horror that came from the windows of the houses. A tull peasant walked past me, bareheaded, in a torn shut. His hair was dishevelled ; his dirty face was covered here and there with thick, almost black blood. He waved his hands and smiled — it was the dull, contented smile of a wellfed beast. Now he walked over to the lamp post, embraced it, and began to shake it, leaning against it with his bare chest. The lamp fell to the ground. "Break it!" cried another peasant, running up to the lamp post. He too embraced it. At that moment a, girl in a torn dress, with her, hair loose, rushed out from amidst the crowd, like a pigeon in a cloud of smoke. She ran, her head lifted heavenwards, her face paie, her eyes large. "Hit the Jewess !" roared some one. And the girl disappeared in the crowd like a bit of sugar under a heap of flies. A. sort of dark gru£l of human bodies began to boil, as it were, over her ; fists flashed in the air ; voluptuous groaning and soft dashes were heard. Cynical jokes, abuses, serpentine hisses — all mingled into one malignant sound. '^Get away ; clear out ! Zelman is coming !" This came from a crowd which was dragging something along the street. They dragged a man, or the body of a man — a half-clad, thin body, crushed and disfigured, all covered with blood and with mud. Having tied Zelman's foot with ropes, the crowd was dragging him along the street, and a wide strip of blood remained behind him. His thin, long hands bathed in the blood, and his disfigured, bleeding head kept striking against the stones. Zelman had been a wealthy contractor. I had often seen him alive, but that whicli I saw did not resemble him; it did not even resemble a human being at all. Stupefied by all that was going on about me, choking with dust, I tossed about in the crowd, like a reed in a stream, and I regarded everything as a terrible nightmare. There on the rain pipe hung a white skirt, high above the ground, and an old woman, rising on tiptoe, was trying to get it with her bony, dark hand. Beside her stood a bearded porter, putting a velvet cap on his head. Boys swarmed about hither and thither, picking up pieces . of looking-glass, and some of them jumped, trying to catch feathers in the air. There ran a policeman, waving his sheathed sword; he was jeered by the crowd. "Catch him !" shouted some one. "Catch him !" Some one threw a broken box before him, and the policeman tumbled over it, and sank to the ground. Loud peals of laughter filled the air. Glancing at the ground I noticed a piece of blood-cov»red skin with a bunch of hair upon it. "Hey ! Come here !" cried the crowd in the yard ; and a mob poured towards the gates like a heavy wave. The mob grunted, howled, roared. "Hit them ! Hit them !" Some people were now breaking the wall between the windows of the second story 'of the house. Bricks, lime, white dust were faffing to the ground. A tray ■was flung out from th« window; it whirled in the air and finally fell on the head of a certain stout woman. The woman sank down with a scream. "The Cossacks !" "Run !" "The Cossacks are coming !" Horses appeared iixthe side street, the blue caps of the Cossacks were seen, whips flashed in the air, and a loud voice commanded : "Three in line— full trot — inarch."' A heap of bricks fell to the sidewalk. The wall was broken through. ' The people were running under the blows of the scourge and the horses — running like a herd of lambs, foolishly, blindly. They could have hidden in the yard; they could have jumped over the fences ; but they all ran along the side street, holding out their heads, their backs, and shoulders for blows of the whips. One powerful shaggy porter suddenly turned around and struck one of the horses a heavy blow on the" jaw, and then disappeared amoug the Cossacks. And jnist where he disappeared, whips kept flashing through the air for a long time. The Cossacks rode on, side by side, like a thick wall, and the .crowd kept running before them, jostling one another. "Hit the Cossacks with bricks !" cried some one. Suddenly a half-clad woman, bathed in blood, fell before the hoofs of the horses. She appeared, no one knew whence ; she clasped the foot of the first Cossack and clung to it with a sob. "Run !" "Hold on !" "Hit the Cossacks !" The crowd roared, and ran on like a stream down a mountain side. The dull tramping of footsteps smote the air, intensified by the hoofs striking against the stones. The . horses could hardly move amid the broken pieces of furniture and the rags which covered the street. The horses pranced. The mob, too, stopped, turning towards the Cossacks. '•Quick ! Quick !" The mob roared and waited. But from the rear, at the other end of the street, policemen and Cossacks on foot came hastening along. Then the mob began to jump over fences, running into yards, and the Cossacks ran after them and caught them. A few miputes before [ these people were beastej mercilessly and

senselessly beating and killing people just as unfortunate as they themselves, and now these beasts were only cowards ; they, too, were beaten mercilessly and senselessly, and they ran from the blows like shameful cowards. In the evening of that day, as I passed the square, by the picket of the Cossack*, I heard one Cossack say to another : "Fourteen Jews weie torn to pieces." And the other smoked his pipe, and said nothing in repiy to his comrade's words, i —Maxim Gorky in the New York Evening Post. .